Kundalini Yoga Sadhana: Structuring a personally transformative practice.

My early days of kundalini yoga practice brought home to me the idea that Time is Relative. Some postures were so incredibly blissful that 3 minutes went by in the blink of an eye, while in other postures I felt surely my arm would literally fall off my body before the end of the third minute. What I didn’t know at the time that what I was labeling as sweet or torturous, was exactly what my teacher was guiding us through. Kundalini Yoga is a practice of Awareness…this means becoming aware of how our body & our mind react, respond, and receive to the experience at hand. In this sense, our body becomes the teacher—we get the chance to observe our mind and how it has been conditioned to react to stress. More likely than not we discover how uncomfortable we are being uncomfortable. Through practice and discipline, we become aware of our Resistance. This Resistance is totally normal, and we need to listen to what it is telling us, but more often than not it is a conditioned reaction our mind has created to avoid discomfort or perceived pain. We will talk about childhood wounding and trauma in another blog, but for now, lets recognize the Resistance and understand how the science of kundalini yoga will help you move through it…how with this Awareness we learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

“In Kundalini Yoga a kriya is a series of postures, breath, and sound that work toward a specific outcome. Practicing a kriya initiates a sequence of physical and mental changes that affect the body, mind, and spirit simultaneously.” -3HO

The exercises in Kundalini Kriyas are given in a specific order because they each have a specific impact on your body’s systems and how the energy moves. Remember that a lot of the shifts and changes happening to you are occurring on a subtle level, which our rational mind is unable to grasp. However, we become aware of them with consistent and dedicated practice. The timings are indeed very precise. Here’s the science behind them:

3 minutes of a kriya affects the aura and the circulation. It takes your blood about one minute to travel around the body, so by practicing a specific meditation or kriya for three minutes, you’ve morse-coded its effects into your cells on a basic level.

11 minutes starts to affect the nerves and glands.

22 minutes brings a balance between the negative, positive and neutral minds – they’re the functional minds, the ones that constantly chatter away to you.

31 minutes brings the effects of the kundalini yoga meditation deep into the body’s cells and natural rhythms. It influences all levels of the conscious and subconscious minds.

62 minutes fundamentally changes the brain’s grey matter. The subconscious becomes conscious.

2.5 hours irrevocably changes the individual psyche and aura. The subconscious mind is held firmly in the shape by the kundalini yoga meditation. 

How many Days?

The mind works in cycles of days, weeks and years, so we can use a repeated daily practice of 3, 11, 22, 31 etc minute timings or a kundalini yoga kriya or meditation in conjunction with these cycles to change unwanted habits or behavioral patterns. By meditating for a specific time, over a specific number of days, we replace a limiting belief system with an expansive, infinite one.

Do a kundalini yoga kriya or meditation every day for 40 days, and you’ll change a habit/destiny. It takes 40 days for the meditation to sift out any thoughts and emotional patterns that limit you.

Do it for 90 days and you’ll confirm that changed habit/destiny. That means the limiting belief has been replaced by an infinite, expansive one.

Do it for 120 days, and you embody that habit/destiny. It becomes who you are.

Do it for 1,000 days, and you’ve mastered the habit/destiny. It is your infinite self.

Daily Sadhana

Sadhana means daily spiritual practice. It is the foundation of all spiritual endeavor. Sadhana is your personal, individual spiritual effort. It is the main tool you use to work on yourself to achieve the purpose of life. It can be done alone or in a group. Sadhana is whatever you do consistently to clear your own consciousness so you can relate to the infinity within you. —3HO

“Everything can be sadhana. The way you eat, the way you sit, the way you stand, the way you breathe, the way you conduct your body, mind and your energies and emotions – this is sadhana. Sadhana does not mean any specific kind of activity, sadhana means you are using everything as a tool for your wellbeing.” —Sadhguru

When you commit to a daily Sadhana, you commit to more than a daily practice. You are promising to have a daily conversation with your soul.

Not sure where to begin? I recommend Sat Kriya, also called the “everything kriya”, as this kriya works your nervous system, cardiovascular system, musculoskeletal, endocrine system and digestive system. It clears lower vibrational emotion and traumas from the lower chakra centers (think childhood wounding), while opening the third chakra to allow the creative life force energy (the Kundalini energy) to rise within us. You can find many great Sat mantra melodies on Spotify to guide you through a 3 min, 7 min or even 11 minute Sat kriya meditation. check out my introduction to Sat Kriya here: https://youtu.be/7tEkm281e9o. (Note: Pregnant women should NOT do Sat Kriya)

Sources:

www.yogigems.com

www.3HO.com

www.isha.sadhguru.org